David Geffen donates $25 million to film museum

Apr. 8, 2013
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David Geffen in July 2013 / Frederick M. Brown Getty Images

by Maria Puente, USA TODAY

by Maria Puente, USA TODAY

The David Geffen philanthropic juggernaut keeps on chugging: This time the entertainment mogul is donating $25 million to a museum planned by the people who hand out the Oscars.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the donation by the David Geffen Foundation today, according to the Associated Press and Variety.

The museum is planning to open next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the Wilshire District in 2017.

Geffen's is the largest contribution yet to the $300 million fund-raising drive for the museum, which will focus on the cinematic arts.

The donation is only the latest philanthropy by Geffen. Last fall, he and his partners in DreamWorks SKG, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, announced they each were giving $30 million to the film industry's charity, the $350 million Motion Pictures & Television Fund campaign, to help build the endowment and support charitable operations.

A few months later, in December, UCLA announced that he donated $100 million to the university's medical school to fund scholarships for top applicants who face medical school debt.

This was in addition to $200 million he gave the school in 2002, which prompted UCLA to name the medical school after him. So far, Geffen, 70, is the single largest individual donor to UCLA or any single UC campus.

And he's probably not done yet giving away the billions he has made as a record, film and theatrical producer. He rarely talks to the press about it but he is reported to have pledged to give it all away eventually.